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Three African Boys

I cannot find the FB post, but one of my “friends” thanked us for redoing the main characters in the Tales books emphasizing multi-ethnicity. To paraphrase, she reported that she was happy about this because they had adopted three African boys from foster care. Thinking about this, I felt the impact of these boys opening a book and finding that one of the main characters, Scar boy (aka Hero), in these new additions is black. Our years in the inner city of Chicago, establishing a multi-racial church with a multi-racial staff, marked us for the rest of our lives. We never saw the world as all white again. The lessons I learned in those 10 years, in dialogue with people of color, learning about systemic racism, learning about my own hidden racism (what a horror—I still find lurking remnants), learning that no matter where I go in the world, I am always the learner, never the white Western expert. While on the Inter Varsity board, my assignment with worthy colleagues was to help “brown” the thinking of the board. Now, I serve on the board of Medical Ambassadors International, a Christian world health organization that empowers people to empower people. Jeremy Mains, our son who died in November of an aggressive acute lymphoma, was way ahead of me as far as being a global thinker. This Kickstarter project is a memorial to Jer. How I miss this son who helped me see the world and the people in it in ways, despite all my life exposure, I had never before thought of or known. I miss this global mentor; he’s gone ahead of me in so many, many ways.